Pinballer

My 2010 RX350 has a very leaky rear seal at the front trans axel. That is the seal between the trans axel and drive shaft. I bought a replacement seal only cost $10. I could not find a you tube video for the RX350 but found a video for the Highlander and figured it is similar. Started by trying to loosen all the fasteners involved. These are the 2 bolts at each of two hangers. these are 14 mm and came loose pretty easily. The next challenge was the four nuts at studs at the drive shaft to rear differential (or rear trans axel). Loosened the two accessible nuts (actually removed them) and then tried to rotate the driveshaft to loosen the other two nuts. The driveshaft won't turn even with the car in neutral and the rear wheels free to rotate. Read on the net that all four wheels need to rotate freely. Instead I drove the car rearward 1 meter ( three feet) in locked AWD. This rotated the drive shaft 180 degrees and I could remove the other two nuts. Tomorrow I plan to remove the complete drive shaft assembly. Hope this explanation may help someone because I sure was stumped as to how to get to all four nuts . It was driving me nuts (lol).

Clutchless

There is a thread on this at the Highlander forum that may be helpful:
https://www.toyotanation.com/threads...#post-14764244

Pinballer

Thanks, I will check that the vent is not stuck, never noticed a vent when I changed the fluid to mobile 1 gear oil a few years ago. The vent could be the reason why it is leaking as the vehicle only has 140000km.

salimshah

Parking brakes?
Remember to mark the shaft and the flange. One should put it back the same way.

Salim

Pinballer

Thanks but, parking brakes were released. Front of car on ramps , thus front wheels can not rotate. Car in Neutral and Parking brakes released. Rear of car lifted such that both wheel can freely rotate. Using a pipe wrench, could not rotate drive shaft, extremely high resistance. The AWD system must still be locking the front wheels to the drive shaft. I did not go as far as jacking up the front , so the front wheels could rotate, instead drove off the ramps then went in locked AWD , drove back an additional 3 feet and the shaft turned so I can access the other two drive shaft nuts.
I did mark the shaft to flange for good measure but doubt that this is needed. The drive shaft assembly (three sections) is being removed as a single unit. It is already balanced to itself and doubt they can balance it with any other part of the car transmission even when built at the factory.

salimshah

With help try rotating both rear tires in unison, to make the diff transmit motion to the drive shaft.

Please mark support bracket too. One can hope/expect things to be independently balanced, but taking couple of precautions pays off. Why chance it?

Locate, lightly tighten all fasteners, re-check and set to torque.

Salim

Pinballer

I did get the nuts off now, will try your suggestion when it is time to tighten up the nuts at the rear diff. Good idea to mark brackets, will do that. I read on that linked highlander post (#2) that someone suggested using silicone sealant at the seal. Does not sound like a good idea to me . I did 3D print a piece to match the seal to assist with pushing it in nice and square to the bore. Any idea if silicone sealant should be used ?

Pinballer

Got my hand onto the transfer case vent by reaching from underneath. It does not seem to move, rotate or move up and down. Any idea how to get the vent , venting again. Maybe spray some wd40 , hope I get the right place and try to wiggle by hand or maybe get some pliers in there ? I can't seem to see the vent from any angle.

Pinballer

I have left the vent issue for now, may be able to get a mirror up in there to see better what is going on. Just got the drive shaft off the car, the rear four bolt flange needed a fair amount of coxing to separate as I am in the rust belt so all parts tend to have corrosion, especially on a 13 year old RX350.

Pinballer

Pretty stuck at getting the old seal out. There is a cup feature that protrudes about 1" all around the seal area. Cut away the flexible rubber around the seal with an Exacto blade. Bent a piece of 1/8" steel to get in there and pull on the lip using huge vice grips. Can't seem to pull it out. Need to pry it somehow for more leverage but that cup piece is in the way. Lexus probably uses a special tool. There seems to be no way to get a regular seal puller in there. I wish I could remove the cup feature but it looks to be part of the housing. Maybe a tiny bearing puller could do the job. Any suggestions ?

Pinballer

Ordered a small bearing puller from amazon will be here tomorrow night. Well this job is dragging on, in addition the replacement seal does not look as robust as the original Lexus seal as the Lexus seal has a steel spring inside it. I may price out a Lexus seal given all the work involved to replace this thing.

salimshah

I have never used a sealant on a seal. I did get one cocked on a side [very hard to see ... no direct line of sight] and that is the only one that leaked on me.

Removing a seal has ranged from easy [paint can opener] to hard [sheetrock screw and pliers to pull it out].

Good luck!

Salim

Clutchless

Get the OEM Lexus seal. You don't want to have to repeat this procedure!

Pinballer

Some pretty good progress today. I am retired so can take my time with this task, it is my wife's car but she can get around with my RX or our Boxster. I got my delivery today, bearing puller/seal puller and endoscope camera. I read online about the assembly for the highlander and it looks similar for the RX. I found my breather using the endoscope and then got my whole arm up in there to fiddle with the breather. It rotates freely and moves up and down so I think it is good. I had to get my arm through the exhaust Y pipe assembly. Engine is obviously fully cooled down , ran it the day before. It is up toward the passenger side of the trans axel. So one thing accomplished and my breathe is good, yeah.
Now on to the seal, to make things easier I removed the lower balance weight, three bolts with a 12mm socket and then attempted to remove the cup. The highlander manual shows to tap it off with a mallet. Well mine did not budge (no surprise) living in the rust belt. So used a steering wheel/bearing puller to pull off the cup. It is just a press fit, no fasteners holding it. Now I have better access to the seal and will make it easier to install a new seal. Used my mini puller that I just ordered, had to modify it slightly to fit. It worked and I pulled out the seal. Decided to quit while I was ahead and tomorrow plan to put in the new seal. Figured it would not hurt to cool the seal, it does have metal in it, and it is in the freezer now.

Pinballer

Finished the job today, it is supposed to rain tomorrow and don't like to leave the Boxster in the rain so wanted to get this finished today. Went to the Toyota dealer to get the Highlander seal equivalent to Lexus. I don't like to pay Lexus prices for the same part, plus my Lexus dealer is a 45 minute drive away versus the Toyota dealer is a 10 minute drive away. Anyways the dealer did not have the seal in stock but I did pick up a couple of crush washers. So I used the seal I had bought online at Rock Auto and it is a good name brand, it actually does look almost identical to the seal I removed. I got confused because the seal I removed had a loose spring but looking carefully at my seal it also had a spring. Installed the seal with a 3D printed tool that I made and it went on perfectly. I actually pushed it in about 1/8" deeper so it would make contact with the shaft at a different axial location (read that online somewhere) compared to the previous seal. I then installed the cup and counter weight. I then supported the driveshaft under the car on a dolly so I could maneuver it in position. Engaged the spline and pushed in the shaft so the cup lined up axially as it was originally. Needed to be careful here as I could have easily pushed the shaft in too far and risk damaging the seal. Anyways, then secured the shaft holder toward the front of the car. Lots of wrestling with that drive shaft, it probably should be a two person job. Then proceeded to try to line up the four bolt flange area. Lifted one rear wheel higher so the flange could be be rotated by turning the rear wheel, then alignment was achieved. Engaged the four bolt flange, tightened up two nuts securely to full torque, there is a spigot on the shaft to flange that centers them properly. Then installed the rearmost support bracket and torqued all fasteners at both support brackets. Then filled the transfer case with the proper gear oil. As a last step, I drove off my ramps and using 4 wheel drive lock got the diff flange to a position where I could install and tighten the last two nuts. I never did verify if the flange could be rotated by raising the back with both rear wheels free to rotate and in neutral and then two people rotating the rear wheels to see if the differential flange would rotate. I did not have a helper plus I wanted to get the job finished. Took it for a test drive and no funny noises , all seems good. Thanks for your help Salimshah and Clutchless. The best suggestion was to mark the parts before I took them apart. I used spray paint of different colours and that did help me with the spacers as they are a different thickness at the front support versus the rear support. I probably would have mixed that up without the marking.